Mobile communications have changed the way people communicate and mobile phones have been transformed from a luxury item to an essential part of every day life. The use of mobile phones today is dictated by social situations, rather than hampered by location or technology. While voice connections fulfill the basic need to communicate, and mobile voice connections continue to filter even further into the fabric of every day life, various integrated mobile multimedia applications, utilizing the mobile Internet, may be the next step in the mobile communication revolution.
Third generation and/or intermediate generation, also referred to as 3G and 2.5G respectively, for example, cellular networks offering various high speed access technologies and mobile telephones that have been specifically designed to utilize these technologies, fulfill demands for integrated multimedia applications supporting TV and audio applications utilizing advanced compression standards, high-resolution gaming applications, musical interfaces, peripheral interface support, etc. The processing requirements are being increased as chip designers take advantage of compression and higher bandwidths to transmit more information. 3G wireless applications support bit rates from 384 kilobits (Kbits)/second to 2 megabits (Mbits)/second, allowing chip designers to provide wireless systems with multimedia capabilities, superior quality, reduced interference, and a wider coverage area.
As mobile multimedia services grow in popularity and usage, factors such as power consumption, cost efficient optimization of network capacity and quality of service (QoS) will become even more essential to cellular operators than it is today. These factors may be achieved with careful network planning and operation, improvements in transmission methods, and advances in receiver techniques and chip integration solutions. To this end, carriers need technologies that will allow them to increase downlink throughput for the mobile multimedia applications support and, in turn, offer advanced QoS capabilities and speeds for consumers of mobile multimedia application services. Currently, mobile multimedia processors may not fully utilize system-on-a-chip (SOC) integration for advanced total system solution for today's mobile handsets. For example, conventional mobile processors may utilize a plurality of hardware accelerators to enable a variety of multimedia applications, which significantly increases power consumption, implementation complexity, mobile processor real estate, and ultimately terminal size.
However, when host processors interface with multimedia accelerators, assuring the integrity and/or compatibility of control signals may be necessary. This may be important when, for example, the host processor operates at high speeds and noise, glitches, and/or delays in control signals from the host processor to the multimedia accelerator may result in false bus cycles and/or other operating errors. These errors may degrade the quality of the data, video, and/or audio content generated by the multimedia accelerator. Moreover, because the host processor may interface with other devices through the multimedia accelerator, the multimedia accelerator may also require sufficient architectural flexibility to accommodate various modes of operation.
Further limitations and disadvantages of conventional and traditional approaches will become apparent to one of skill in the art, through comparison of such systems with some aspects of the present invention as set forth in the remainder of the present application with reference to the drawings.